The Last Executioner (3 page)

The next day, he was grinning from ear to ear when a black Mercedes-Benz arrived to pick him up and then drop him back to my place after the seminar. He stayed with me for five days and then headed back to Bangkok. It was great to see him, and I promised myself I would keep in touch a lot more.

Sadly my letters continued to be infrequent even after this visit. I should have written to him a lot more than I did. This remains one of my biggest regrets. It probably made his day when he did receive a note of some description from me. He had retired by then and just longed to keep up with my day to day routine. I always intended to write a letter to accompany the money I sent him, but to get to the Post Office I had to pass—or try to pass—by the theatre. More often than not I would end up sitting in a plush seat in front of the big screen, and then would have to dash to make the post and there would be no time to write anything. My heart clenches every time I read this letter:

Dear Pom (his nickname for me)

I got your money order son. Today is 21 February 1967 3.30pm. You’ve not sent me letter lately. I guess you don’t have time for it or you don’t know what to write. I too don’t know what to write. However, I’m relieved now knowing you’re OK. You decide for yourself what you should do and what you should not. I leave the decision up to you. You should write me one letter a week at least. Two would be better .

Hope you’re happy there.

Sawasdee.

***

My favourite drinking hole was Noknoi nightclub. We would go there in the afternoon to partake in the Tea Dance. I don’t know why it was called that since there was no dancing and certainly no tea—instead everyone was drinking beer or liquor. Noknoi was only one of two nightclubs in Ubolratchathani, the other was King Star. There were a few bars, and after they closed we would head to a ‘coffee shop’ for a last beer along with a plate of fried chicken. I had a leisurely life-style then. My typical day began at 10am approximately. We usually caught a movie about mid-day and then we would practice in the afternoons. As I say we got along fine with the American soldiers. We had a lot in common with them, and were close to them in age. I was also careful to get on with the local people, and chatted to the rickshaw drivers. Sometimes I would get a gig playing at Chaloemsin, just over the bridge from Ubolratchathani. Because I had money I could grab a taxi or rickshaw instead of taking the pink and white bus, but there was a problem with them at first as they didn’t want our Thailand bank notes. Everyone wanted the American dollar.

It sounds crass to say that I enjoyed the Vietnam War, but I was a young man, whose day was spent listening to and playing music, drinking beer with my friends, without any real responsibility. I had plenty of money and could indulge my fondness for fashion and good clothes. I loved to dress well and no one knew that better than my father. If I ever needed proof of his love for me I need look no further than the fact he bought me a pair of made-to-order Jalernchai shoes. These shoes were all the rage at the time—well, among kids richer than me—and cost the equivalent of an average month’s wage. Of course, the war would impinge on our fun when an American friend wouldn’t make it back from the front—a brutal reminder that life could be very short indeed. I think what I liked about the Americans was that they treated everyone equally. Thai people judge you on how much money you have while the American just wants to know you can do the job. They would give someone a tool-box and let him prove that he could fix a motorbike. If he could, he had a job, regardless of who he was.

I was impressed by stars like Bob Hope, who would play two shows, one for the officers in their clubs and another for the NCO (non-commissioned officers) club. If the commissioned officers wanted to see the second show they would have to come in civilian clothes or else they would be booed. The men talked constantly about going home, and most of them did not seem certain about what they were fighting for. They could not get enough of that song ‘500 Miles Away From Home’. It was one of their most requested songs and they would all join in and sing about not having a shirt on their back or a penny to their name. Another popular tune was ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane’. Again, it was all about going home.

One time I left Mitra at the urging of Toi, a friend from home. I got on a bus to join him in Lop Buri, a town north of Bangkok, to play bass guitar, but this arrangement barely lasted seven days. I didn’t go out much and the pay wasn’t good. However, as it was a lot nearer to Bangkok my father came out to see me again. The manager of Mitra rang him at home to ask if I would play with them again, this time in Udornthani, in the north-eastern region of Thailand. I did not have to think hard about my decision; I promptly apologised to Toi and wished him the best of luck, and left Lop Buri with my father. I caught another bus to Udornthani. I had never been there before but my father was told to tell me to go the Lotus bar, which was in front of the big US military camp. I worried that I wouldn’t get off at the right stop, but once the bus dropped me off I found myself looking at Lotus, directly across from the bus-stop. I could hear music and sure enough Mitra were on stage when I went in. I relaxed with a cold beer until the band saw me and beckoned me to join them. The line-up had changed; there were two singers, a Chinese girl and a guy from Malaysia, and a saxophonist, Thep Sornvijit, the only name I remember now. We spent a week there, playing every night to the Americans, which meant a lot of drinking and partying. I loved it. I started to band-hop, like a freelance musician, which was a good excuse to travel and see different places.

***

Sometime in 1968 I arrived in Sattaheep, which is right on the coast of the Gulf of Thailand. There was an American camp here too; I think it was called Camp Vayama. I stayed for two months, playing at the Ponderosa restaurant-bar. The owner also owned the local bath house where I spent many a relaxing afternoon. I was joining another old pal, this time from Saint Joan of Arc, who played guitar in a group with two bad-tempered Chinese girls.

They looked comical onstage, standing side by side, because one was very fat and the other one was skinny. I didn’t get a chance to get to know them very well as they left the band abruptly after a fight with one of the guitarists. However, I made a lot of other friends over the two months. I learned how to bowl and play cards, in that order. It’s true what they say about gambling—when you win money, you want to play again to win more, and when you lose money, you want to play again to get it back. The money wasn’t that great, though I was living cheaply enough, and my accommodation was just a small room provided by the bar. My meals were free, but not very appetising. I was caught up quite happily in my own life, barely registering the world outside my life of gigs, girls and gambling, but there were constant reminders that the world was still turning. At night I could hear the B52 planes taking off and then hear them return in the early hours of the morning, their deadly mission completed.

My father came to see me at Sattaheep. It was a surprise visit so it was lucky that I decided to bus into the city centre. I saw him, from the window, with Oud my older brother and Seena, my half-sister, from one of my father’s previous marriages. They came to the Ponderosa to have dinner and watch me play. I hadn’t seen my siblings in quite a while and I was delighted to catch up with them, and show off my musical talent and my many new friends.

When our gig ended with the Ponderosa I went home to Bangkok where I hung out with old friends and practised my guitar a lot. Then, a DJ I knew, Surachai Thomdirat, rang to ask me if I would go to play in Ta Khli, in the province of Nakhon Sawan, which is north-west of Bangkok, a few hours past Lop Buri. It was quite a large, busy city, very modernized compared to most places I had been. I jumped at the opportunity. The following day I left Bangkok on the 1pm train and arrived in Ta Khli four hours later. There was a big American camp there, so there were plenty of farangs on the streets and everyone was well dressed with plenty of style. There was also lots of traffic, buses, trucks as well as the more humble tricycles. To my delight there were plenty of bars and bath houses that lined both sides of the streets, and there were no less than two movie theatres, Chalermwattana and Sripornsawan, though they sadly lacked air-conditioning. There was also a large fresh food market with plenty of variety; I couldn’t believe the many different types of food on offer. Up on the mountain in Ta Khli, the US Army Airforce Radar and Communication Site was clearly visible. This base was very strict compared to the others and the guards were really uptight about who could enter or leave the camp. I later found out that this was to do with the F111 which was supposed to be top secret, but obviously wasn’t. The F111 was meant to be the absolutely most up to date war plane with the highest of high-tech equipment, and it was stationed there. Despite all this hoo-hah, however, I do know that not all of those fantastic planes made it back to the base.

I played in three different bars there over a period of six months. I was in a group that included another school friend of mine, Odd. Quite possibly he was the reason I got the job. The first bar we played at was the American Bar, run by a large Thai woman. She hired us for two months, and as was usual, provided us with accommodation, letting us have an old house behind the bar. It’s a house that I will never forget. I moved my stuff into a room on the second floor while Odd bagged a room on the ground floor. After a couple of nights he began to complain that the house was haunted. I wasn’t sure if I believed him or not but when his complaints got louder I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and spend the night in his room—he wasn’t making it up. I awoke at some stage in the night when my bed started to shake violently for no reason, and then, to my horror, I saw the outline of a woman sitting silently on a chair against the wall. I couldn’t really see her face as she was staring down into her lap, but she had long dark hair. She never looked or spoke to me, which is a good thing because I had lost my tongue, and couldn’t even scream. After a couple of seconds she vanished, and so did I, never to spend another night in that room.

We did very well in Ta Khli and proved very popular. We included acrobats and silly stunts as part of our act, and a lot of our songs were heavily laden with a great drum beat. I was now able to play bass guitar, which improved my confidence as a musician. Thailand’s Elvis replaced us when we left for our next post, the Sorry About That Bar, where we played for three months. This was a big place that used to be a roller-skating rink, and was run by a kindly Chinese man, who was from my home town in Bangkok. The bar was in the centre of the hall so there was plenty of room for the popular floor shows. Odd left the band around this time and was replaced by Tui, a married man from Nonthaburi. We must have been decent enough because I remember someone recording us rehearsing one day. We also played at the Sripornsawan theatre, with other local bands, thanks to DJ Surachai, who had joined us by then, but the money wasn’t great.

When our three months were up we got a booking at the Black Jack bar, but this turned out to be a very quick visit. The owner wasn’t very prompt at paying us so our managers, Maitri and Tawil Mitranon, decided that we should move on to Udorn. We sneaked out in the dead of night, which is not something I’m necessarily proud of. So I was back in Udorn again the following afternoon. The bar that booked us, the Las Vegas, was still being renovated. It looked more like a nightclub, and had a big dance floor. We heard that a farang had been shot dead here, under a previous owner, which thrilled us a little.

Things started off well. We all shared a house which faced onto a pawn shop. There were quite of few of us now, three guitarists, one drummer, Thep the saxophonist, a Filipino called Philip on trumpet, two female singers, and Tui who also sang, and who was the eldest son of the manager. We played there for a couple of months but were gradually paid less and less. However I always enjoyed Udorn. For one thing I got plenty of opportunity to practice my bowling. The two movie theatres, Chalermwattanarama and Vistarama, both had really good bowling facilities on their second floors, with plenty of lanes.

I was lucky enough to be able to visit the American camp because the Shang Gri-la bar owner, where we next played, was the ‘wife’ of the sergeant who ran the officer’s club in the base. She put in a good word for us and we were invited to play at the base on Phupan Mountain. My father was visiting me at that time and was more than delighted to accompany us. Strippers were also organised for the show and we all bundled ourselves and our equipment into a large bus to make the treacherous journey on a dusty winding road that seemed mostly under repair. The three sides of the mountain were nearly vertical and I did not enjoy the drive. Neither did the strippers, and there was a lot of praying interjected with screams and hysterical giggling. However, my father absolutely loved it and kept trying to make me look out the window so that I could appreciate the heights we were climbing. When we reached the mountain top there was a helicopter parked outside the camp’s entrance, and there was plenty of barbed wire. A pilot I knew told me that there were three security barriers; barbed wire, and beyond that an electric fence, and lastly a fence that was alarmed to the hilt. I saw lots of machine guns almost covered in their bunkers by gunny bags. Because of the height of the mountain it was quite misty, but you could not fail to appreciate the size of this military base.

We had also played at the military base in Udorn when we played at the non-commissioned officer’s (NCO) bar. It was huge, with bomb shelters, bowling alleys and cinemas, and was completely staffed by Thai people, house-keepers, gardeners, cooks and waitresses. There was also a Laundromat staffed by Thai women. Oil was obviously something that they had in abundance; I remember my surprise at seeing three gardeners using three lawn mowers to do one small field. There was even a row of slot machines in the clubhouse. I felt really at home in my Elvis-style get up.